What are cavities, and what causes them?
Dr. Clendenon’s favorite way of explaining cavities probably won’t be found in an American Dental Association’s pamphlet. He feels a little more graphic explanation ensures better understanding. Cavities are formed when bacterial “waste products” weaken and break down your tooth’s hard surfaces. In other words, germs go to the bathroom on your teeth, and those acids weaken the tooth structure and soften it. Softened and weak tooth structure is called a cavity. It is not widely publicized, but at Dr. Clendenon’s alma mater, Loma Linda University, a study was conducted by a brilliant scientist, Dr. Ralph Steinman, who found that a tooth kind of “sweats” when it is healthy: that there is a movement of fluid from the inside of a tooth to its outside under healthy conditions. He also found that high levels of sugar in the blood reduce, stop and even reverse that fluid movement. So when bacteria excrete their waste products, they get all over the tooth structure and de-mineralize them. If a
